Many of the integrated circuits (ICs) fabricated today are mounted in a ball grid array (BGA) package. The BGA package has a plurality of solder balls (often hundreds of solder balls) on its undersurface that are coupled to device terminals on the integrated circuit chip. In use, the solder balls are soldered to a printed circuit board to achieve the proper interconnection between the circuitry on the printed circuit board and the integrated circuit. Before any IC can be sold it must be tested to insure that the device meets the intended specification. Testing an IC in a BGA package requires holding the plurality of solder balls of the IC package against electrodes (often spring loaded electrical contacts known as POGO pins) that are connected to a testing apparatus. Holding the solder balls against the electrodes usually requires a test socket that precisely aligns the large number of small, closely spaced solder balls to the test electrodes. Present day test sockets are usually useful for only a single package size and type with a single predetermined array of solder balls. Thus if a device is mounted in a package of a different size or having a different array of solder balls, a new test socket must be used. Requiring a new test socket is both expensive and time consuming because of the lead time to design and acquire the new socket. Such sockets are also prone to damaging the solder balls and are not particularly amenable to automated insertion and unloading of the integrated circuits being tested.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an integrated circuit test socket that can be readily changed to accommodate different BGA package sizes and arrays of solder balls. In addition, it is desirable to provide an IC test socket into which it is easy to automatically insert devices for test and that does not damage the solder balls on the IC package. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.